Erin Hunt and Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan work for Mines Action Canada, which supports the global ban on anti-personnel mines. The Baltic states, with ther justifiable history of fearing Russia, are about to withdraw from the treaty unless NATO countries can talk them out of it. For the video and audio podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-685-updating-landmines-action

Rnnald St. John is a retired epidemiologist who worked in government and the WHO to limit the impacts of pandemics. Neil Arya is a family physician in Waterloo, Ontario, who recalls his climic during the SARS epidemic, which St. John was in charge of controlling. They talk about the new Treaty that has been adopted, which is intended to ensure that health resources are distributed equitably in the next pandemic. For the video and audio podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-684-a-pandemic-treaty

Robert Quinn works through Scholars at Risk to protect academics whose search for truth is being constrained anywhere in the world. He helps the to migrate to safe countries. Marc Spooner is Canadian professor of education who also studies the relationship between academic freedom and democracy. For the video and audio, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-683-academic-freedom

This month we talked about our own disabilities with words in ageing; about dying and how to use our defunct bodies later, and about Gaza; AI; psychedelic drugs; DNA research; and the future of life after the transition to "stellar" civilization - the thing beyond capitalism. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-682-global-town-hall-may-2025.

Seth Klein heads a project that is part of David Suzuki's climate work. It will offer Canadian youth opportunities to work in the climate emergency as intensely as in World War II – a time of extraordinary efficiency. Can we make such a speed-up transition again? What is the main obstacle? We discuss. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-681-seth-klein-and-emergencies

Robia Akhtar, Tariq Rauf, and Earl Turcotte are experts on nuclear weapons negotiations. They are especially concerned these days about the recent military exchanges between two nuclear-armed states, India and Pakistan. They discuss the challenges and the extraordinary importance of achieving global and permanent nuclear disarmament. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: http://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-680-nuclear-diplomacy.

Peter Ward is a paleontologist who has described some of the earth's previous extinction events. He's worried about the one we may be creating now – and he worries about the attack on science that is going on in the US today. At the University of Washington, people are being laid off today. We can't save the world without science. For the video and audio podcast, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-679-a-paleontologist-and-rice-paddies.

Oleksandra Romantsova, Dmitry Gurin, and Sergey Davidis talk about their new organization, People First, which seeks to protect prisoners of conscience in Russia who oppose the war against Ukraine. Their primary objective is to establish that, when a peace agreement is reached, the prisoners and Ukrainian children who had been abducted and placed in russia foster homes will be the first to be released and sent to their original homes. For the video and audio podcast, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-678-people-first-and-russia.

Victor Kogan Yasny joined us from Moscow and told us that the military economy was booming but not business. Also, we talked about the strange shift of young American males toward Trump. The main explanation was Rose Dyson's: the profitable business of violent video games, which trains males to kill effectively. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-675-global-town-hall-april-2025.

There is one surviving branch of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly: in the south Caucasus. Arzu Abdulleyeva, Natalia Martiroosyan and Alexander Russetsky belong to it, and in the Netherlands, Marten van Harten. They discuss the Nagorno Karabakh war and the new peace agreement, yet to be signed. Jill Carr-Harris steers the conversation. For the video, audio podcast and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-764-progress-in-the-south-caucasus